Radical Atheist

Obviously Robertson failed to fact-check his sources before making his most recent ignorant claim.

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan

(Source-StarTribune.com) (Tip o’ the hat to robertniles on Twitter for the link)

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• The Thing I Don’t Understand About Pat Robertson’s Haiti Comment (hermenaut.org)
• ‘Pact with the Devil’: Robertson Blames Haiti for Quake (time.com)
• Haiti’s real deal with the devil (boingboing.net)

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Religious belief encourages shifting the blame, avoidance of responsibility. You can pray for the president to die and blame it all on god, or the Book, or the god’s evil twin/nemesis. Superstitious beliefs encourage putting the blame for our shortcomings on the alignment of the stars, our karma, crystal vibrations or breaking a mirror. It’s a common human tendency to think more highly of ourselves and when forced to acknowledge a failure to live up to our self-image, to find something to blame that on. In others words, to avoid responsibility. Religious belief offers lots of scapegoats. Sacrificial lambs, if you will. They pay for your sins so you don’t have to. How convenient, how irresponsible.

When you strip away the supernatural and superstitious you are left with the inescapable conclusion that each of us is responsible for ourselves. We ought to own both the positive and negative within us.

Gods don’t ask people to kill other people people kill people and blame it on their god. God doesn’t hate anything, people hate things and claim that their god shares their opinions.

It’s pathetic to use religion as an excuse for inhumane behavior. We who do not believe hold every person responsible for their own words, thoughts and actions.

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People contend that science and religion can coexist. Science itself is not anti-religion but much of what we’ve learned about reality from science exposes the errors in theology.

The Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon were written by people of a certain time and a particular social setting. Holy books reflect the society that gave birth to them. None of them clearly and without requiring convoluted interpretation state anything that was not already known in that time and part of the world.

Why wouldn’t the gods mention something in their books (using “their” loosely, as we know that the books were written by human scribes who only claimed to be inspired by the subject of the book) that was going to be common knowledge only much later. Think of the stunning effect that would have on future generations. A specific and detailed prediction of the internet, for instance. Something that would have made no sense at all to the scribes but would only be understood 1000 years later. The gods in the holy books give no indication of knowing anything about the rest of the world, present or future, that isn’t also common knowledge of the time and people from whence it comes. I’ve heard tons of excuses for that but no rational example of any god showing an awareness of something completely unknown and foreign to the authors of those books.

The Bible, because it’s the one I’m most familiar with, clearly indicates “truths” that are not correct according to the current evidence. For example, the Earth did not come into being in seven days or seven thousand years (There are two places in scripture that say a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, which either means that his time scale is different than ours or that he’s a really boring person) but over millions of years. Science is clearly at odds with the Biblical creation story. Conclusions drawn from available evidence also lend no validity to American Indian creation stories, Egyptian creation stories or any of the thousands of other fantastic and supernatural creation stories.

Creation stories persist because humans have only recently begun to have the means to examine nature on the scale we can today. We’ve been ignorantly superstitious for thousands of years. We’ve only been able to look at the universe the way we can today in the last hundred. There’s a lot of ingrained ignorance, yes, in even the most brilliant mind, to eradicate. We really only just begun.

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In the ongoing conversation via Intense Debate after my article Honest Compassion reader Jared Smith suggested I read two blog entries, one by Michael Buss and the other by Roy Hattersley in The Guardian. I said I would and that I’d most likely blog my impressions. I did and I am.

First let me say to both Buss and Hattersley/The Guardian. You’re all cowards. Neither of you allow comments to your posts. Blogs/Editorials that only “talk” and refuse to “listen” are rude and don’t deserve the readers they get. Sure, I can email Buss (and debate in private) or write an editorial response to The Guardian, but neither option is as easy or elligant as allowing comments. Sure you have to moderate them, maybe cull a spammer or two, but for no god’s sake, is that all that much work? If you want to earn the respect of your readers and your peers in the medium, tear down the walls around your opinions and let us respond directly to you. At the very least you may learn a thing or two, like I did in following up on Jared’s suggestion.

Hattersley writes:

Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers’ clubs and atheists’ associations – the sort of people who not only scoff at religion’s intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

He presumes (for no stated reason) that atheists behave like theists, forming little social circles around our common disbelief in gods, then when called out to answer to an emergency, we all don our “No Gods!” teeshirts and arrive en masse to save the day. Sorry, Roy. I know a fair number of atheists, both online and off, and they aren’t rabid joiners.  But they do volunteer, often at gay health clinics or Planned Parenthood clinics, you know, the places most Christians don’t ever want to be seen. And when atheists do join aid organizations, they usually do so as individuals, not “in the name of Dawkins” or “doing our duty to Darwin”. I know atheists who work with ostensibly religious organizations without reservation because they consider the good done to outweigh the motivation. So Roy, unless you know the religious beliefs of everyone who spends time or money helping the needy and what motivates them to help, you’re shooting in the dark.

Yes, we do scoff at religion’s intellectual absurdity, and with good reason. But “religion” is just the lipstick on the pig, the attempt to organize an otherwise chaotic hodgepodge of attitudes toward the gods into some semblance of order. The “force” of religion is directly proportional to the degree of belief of its followers. As belief diminishes, so does its power. We have historical evidence of the power of religion when belief increases, especially when it increases litterally beyond reason. Though as an atheist I wouldn’t use the word “evil”, I would certainly say that much of that history was detrimental to the health of humanity. The term “barbaric” would apply, and be ironic when applied to theists.

Then Roy spends several paragraphs relating little life snippets that he seems to believe lend credibility to his contention. It does no good to challenge “true life” stories on the internet. Of course all these stories appear to support his conclusion. Would he have mentioned them if they didn’t?

Then Roy says,

The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God’s children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a book of gold, like James Leigh Hunt’s Abu Ben Adam, as “one who loves his fellow men”. Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor – right at the other end of the theological spectrum – did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves.

First of all, correlation does not imply causation.

The belief that you are god’s children is one of your more divisive beliefs. It’s what allows the religious to feel superior to and separate from the rest of humanity, even other god believers. Charity is promoted among your own kind in order to reinforce the image of community and provide for your common survival, and to others on condition of their acceptance of your conditions (belief). Religious charity is enforced by dogma and motivated by fear and guilt. Is that healthy for anyone? What about the gay man caring for his dying partner or the young woman who cares for a parent? No, they aren’t out there in front of the cameras in their little red jackets with the white mathematical symbol for “plus” on it. But their sacrifice is no less noble than any nun’s. That’s humanity, not religion.

Hattersley/The Guardian

Roy:

It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian…

Did he proofread this? Does he know this sentence is nonsensical?  Yes, Mr. Hattersley, in fact it’s possible to live a life of great charity and compassion without a belief in gods. It is indeed possible to be ethical, empathetical and compassionate without entertaining nonsense.

The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me.

See, world, not all atheists are geniuses. I don’t know how that happens. Once and a while one slips through the initiations and the background checks, manages to become one of the elite corps of atheists, yet exhibits the critical thinking skills of plankton.

“The only possible conclusion…” Really? No other conclusion can ever be drawn? It’s not even remotely possible that there could be another explanation for the situation? Can you defend such an absolute position? Is it statements like this that are the reason The Guardian doesn’t allow replies to its comments?

And if you truly are an atheist, you ought to realize that no one is “morally superior” to anyone else.

–^”^–_________—^”^–____________

Michael Buss’ argument is based on his understanding and interpretation of the theory of evolution. His post indicates that his interpretation misses one factor crucial to the theory.

Buss hangs his theory of the “survival of the fittest” on an erronious interpretation of Darwin’s writings.

Darwin credits Herbert Spencer for conceiving of the term “survival of the fittest”. But fittest wasn’t used to mean the most highly trained and physically energetic.

Although Darwin used the phrase “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for “natural selection”, it is a metaphor, not a scientific description. It is not generally used by modern biologists, who use the phrase “natural selection” almost exclusively.

An interpretation of the phrase to mean “only the fittest organisms will prevail” (a view common in social Darwinism) is not consistent with the actual theory of evolution. Any organism which is capable of reproducing itself on an ongoing basis will survive as a species, not just the “fittest” ones. A more accurate characterization of evolution would be “survival of the fit enough.” Furthermore, the term “fittest” or “fit enough” refers only to an organism’s ability to survive, and not necessarily to physical strength, intelligence, or any other characteristic regarded as positive by human beings. Thus, “survival of the fittest” could simply mean “survival of those who are better equipped for surviving,” which is a tautology. ^{(Source-Wikipedia)}

M. Buss

So when Buss reaches his conclusion:

The law of the survival of the fittest will inexorably have its way. The high risk takers will be eliminated in time until their number is so reduced that the remaining members of these groups will change their behavior or die the same way. Treat them with all the drugs they can afford to prolong life, they will still die of AIDS related diseases. Sexual hedonism will be hit so hard that eventually there will grow a wisdom – a morality if you like – that reverts to the old traditional sexuality of both Muslim and Christian traditions.

His misunderstanding of the actual meaning of “survival of the fittest” renders his conclusion rather odd. He predicts the deaths of millions of people, gay and straight, and appearently thinks that will eliminate AIDS from the gene pool. And as a lesson from this modern plague, people will flock out of fear and ignorance toward “a wisdom – a morality if you like – that reverts to the old traditional sexuality of both Muslim and Christian traditions”. Isn’t that what they do now?

What if AIDS patients evolve a tolerance for the disease and become immune to further transmission or infection?

And what is wise about the traditional sexuality of both…traditions? You don’t think that the sexual morays and practices of the religious are just a bit irrational and inconsistent? Pleeeaze.

These two writers claim to both be atheists. Perhaps they are, I have few means and no interest in tracking evidence of that down. If nothing else, they illustrate the less-than-glamorous reality of atheism; it’s just a disbelief in gods. Whatever you choose to believe beyond your disbelief in god is the choice of every atheist.

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If terrorism were simply another human trait it would be much more common among all people.

True, all humans have the potential to be terrorists, but that potential requires a motivation. Motivation is what turns any human potential into human behavior. And the most powerful and effective motivator for most people is religion. Fanatic religious belief acts like a fuse on a bomb. No fuse, the device is inert. With a fuse the device has the potential to be deadly, light the fuse and that possibility becomes a near certainty.

Religion is the fuse and the spark that lights the fuse is a fanatical belief that your god wants you to kill as many other people as possible. Christians do that, but generally in a rather inept way. Fanatical Christians are quite often more amusing than frightening. Fanatical Muslims on the other hand…

Oh, and worst of all? Those roving bands of fanatical atheists with their tracts and their bullhorns, trying to blow people’s minds. Dangerous lunatics.

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No one likes being lied about.

One of the most frustrating things about being an atheist is reading and hearing the religious, either through ignorance or maliciousness, contend that atheists can’t be loving, caring, compassionate people simply because they don’t accept the claims of this religion or that religion. Don’t believe me? Here’s what theists want their children to believe…

No doubt it makes the religious feel all smug and self-righteous to envision atheists as grumpy, mean old bastards.

Unfortunately, there’s no meat on those bones.

I wonder if theists ever question why so many people that describe themselves as humanists are also atheists? I wonder if theists have actually asked an atheist why they are atheistic, and actually listened to their answer?

The majority of atheists I know, have heard and have read about reached the conclusion that religions are detremental to peace and harmony among humans because they care about their fellow man. Atheists, unlike theists, know that all people are equal. We are all humans, all members of the same species. We don’t place ourselves above the rest of humanity. We don’t claim a special relationship with a fictional god. We don’t exclude those who don’t live like us, think like us, dress like us or believe like us. Atheists aren’t trying to make every American live like an atheist, we want all people to be free to live as they wish, think as they wish and believe as they wish without interference from the government or any other single group within society. We don’t strive to create an atheistic society, while the Falwell’s in America publicly confess they intend to see our secular country become a theocracy. We don’t claim special knowledge of absolute truth.

We are atheists because we care about people. We suffer when others suffer. We feel their pain because they are like us, we are all humans. We hate to see children and innocents die in wars fought for no better reason than a disagreement over whose imaginary friend is superior. We suffer with those who die for want of medicine and aid withheld because some religious leader doesn’t think his god approves of providing it. We fear for our planet as populations grow without restraint because a virgin pontiff doesn’t condone condoms. Our hearts go out to our gay brothers and sisters who are oppressed and harmed simply because some people say their god doesn’t approve of them.

Atheists and humanists hold the moral high ground when it comes to compassion and true love for all humanity. It’s pretentious and false for the religious to try and claim the same degree of concern. They only care that everyone shares their fantasy. They don’t especially care if you’re hungry, ill or without hope. Just accept their beliefs and their god will care for you, or if he fails to do so, claim that your condition is their god’s will for you. Sure they offer charity, but that comes with a big string attached. If you refuse to buy into their belief system, their charity will become condemnation. They want to believe you’ll suffer for all eternity to having the gall to refuse the “love” of their god. Charity will be the furthest thing from their minds.

Theists attempt to claim that atheists provide no charity, that we don’t have our own Salvation Army (think about that name for a moment), our own ministries to the homeless, that atheists don’t contribute to causes that help others. What they fail to take into account is that we have no “god” in whose name we perform our acts of charity. We have no organization to show the world how concerned we are. Our acts, our donations are done individually. We give what we can where we can, without the showy “we’re doing god’s will” self-promotion. We don’t love in the name of a god, we love in the name of humanity. Our goal is not to get everyone into our club so we can collect their tithe every week. Our goal is the good of humanity, peace on Earth, a brotherhood of man.

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With apologies to Art Linkletter and thanks to allgirlarmy.org where I saw the link to this site; a few of the crazier beliefs Christians have been kind enough to post for our amusement.

There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don’t know that much about it does not bother me in the least. AV1611VET, Christian Forums [2006-Sep-12]

You got it backwards. Creationism is based upon science, reason and tons of evidence. Evolution is based on the blind acceptance of superstitions and fairy tales. CRASH, Theology Online [2006-Jul-18]

I often debate with evolutionists because I believe that they are narrow mindedly and dogmatically accepting evolution without questioning it. I don’t really care how God did what He did. I know He did it. TexasSky, Christian Forums [2006-Aug-24]

[on the sunject of a Bible printing company] Yes, that is a great company. I bought one of their large print version (old eyes… what can I say?). The only thing I don’t like about them is they sell foreign language versions of the KJB. I don’t think that’s right. We know the only true translation is the 1600’s version in English. It’s too risky for anybody to translate that into other languages. Mistakes can creep in… and that can lead to heresy. True Christians should only read English. leyenda , KJB only [2007-Aug-06]

I honestly don’t care about your rights. If it were up to me, all Atheists would be burnt at the stake and or cast into a river with weights tied to their ankles and or placed before the firing squad, etc etc etc. Apologist, IIDB [2006-Jul-05]

[Am I in discussion with a human who has a functioning brain?] What does a functioning brain have to do with the Bible? LittleLambofJesus, Christian Forums [2006-Oct-16]

Seriously, does anybody ever cry at an Atheist’s funeral?

I mean, since Atheists have no value whatsoever as human beings (they’re not even human, but only inhuman animals), since Atheists are nothing but miserable Liars, Cowards and Murderers, after all, why would anybody in their right mind weep over the dead rotting corpse, or bone chips and ashes (that get mixed together with those of others from the crematory) of a worthless dead Atheist?

And what epitaph do you engrave on an Atheist’s grave marker? “Here lies the only good Atheist, which is a dead Atheist”. What else is there say? Nothing at all. No last words, no last rites, no flowers, no anything.

Every time an Atheist dies, the world is better off as a result of that dead Atheist being dead, & its damned God-forsaken soul burning in the fiery pits of Hades. :)

Which begs another related question, do Atheists cry at funerals? If so, why? Since Atheists hate God, and they hate Family, and they hate Country, who are they crying for? It is true: The only good Atheist is a dead Atheist. Daniel Joseph Min, alt.atheism [2007-Jan-07]

[One Christian speaking to another] You are banned. You are not a Christian for Christians don’t accuse brothers and sisters in Christ of being non-Christian. Troy, Bibliocality [2006-Feb-07]

What is called ‘Science’ today and ’scientists’ consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the ‘Priest-Entertainers’ for the common people. ‘Science’ consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology… nothing good has ever come from ’science’ —- In fact, technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: “Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane.” By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth!

The Fact the Earth is Flat is not my opinion, it is a Proved Fact! While all we need to know is that the Bible says the Earth is flat (Is.40:22, Ez.7:2, Dn.2:35; 4:10-11,20, Mt.4:8)… but for a second can you imagine what these so-called ’scientists would have us believe —- If the earth really was round, that would mean there arre people who are HANGING DOWN, HEAD DOWNWARDS while we are standing head up? But since the theory allows to travel to those parts of the earth where the people are said to hand head downward, and still to fancy ourselves to be heads upwards, and our friends whom we have left behind us to be heads downwards! LOL! What foolishness! TheWHOLE THING IS A MYTH – A DREAM – A DELUSION – and a snare, and, instead of there being any evidence at all in this direction to substantiate this popular theory, it is plain proof that the Earth is Not A Globe!

Also, be sure to know the Sun and Moon are about 3,000 miles away are both 32 miles across. The Planets are ‘tiny.’ Sun and Moon do Move, earth does NOT move, whirl, spin or gyrate (1 Sam.2:8, 1 Chr.16:30; Job 9:6, 38:4-6; Ps.96:10, 104:5, Is.13:10, Mic.6:2). Australians do NOT hang by their feet under the world… this is a FACT, not a theory! Also a Fact the Spinning, Whirling, Gyrating Ball World Planet, Globe Idea is Entirely 100% now and at all times in the Past, a RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE… a Blind Dogmatic Article of Faith in the Religion for the Blind unreasoning beast of prey. No earthly reason for a Sane, Upright Member of the Elite True Christians to subscribe to it. Also a Fact, today the Elite of Earth ALL live on the Flat World. Only the illogical, unreasoning “herd”… prefers the way-out occult weird theology of the old Greek superstitution earth a spinning ball! Both Copernecious and Newton, the inventors of the “modern” superstitions (400 year OLD modern) have said: “It is not possible for a Sane reasonable person to ever really believe these Theories.” Thus sayeth Newton-Copernecious. What sayeth THOU? KettleWhistle, Israel Forum [2007-Mar-02]

Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history. Pat Robertson, Quotes From the Religious Right [2007-Nov-09]

The only solution we have to stop gays from recruiting other people is to cut off the source. They need to be taken to specialized containment centers where they will be forced to become straight and accept Jesus as thier savior and to repent from their disgusting, wicket, hatful, devilish ways. Those that refuse to go can either be forced, or banished from society in other specialized communities where they have no connetion to the outside world at all. Most would die of AIDS anyway. Anyone who refused any of the answers to make them better would have to be killed or banished. Meg, Myspace [2007-Aug-24]

Me and like-minded Christian students are trying to organize a mock stoning of openly gay students at our campus. We will be using crumpled up gray/brown construction paper to represent rocks, and will recite bible verses in opposition to their sinful nature. We will throw a volley or two of these “rocks” at every Gay person we happen to encounter that day. Rebelscum954, CARM [2007-Sep-12]

A woman for president is a bad idea. Hillary for president is even worse. Do you think America never had a woman for president by coincidence?

[You can transfer that logic to black people, seeing as there's been no black presidents - Anyway it's incredibly insensitive, stupid and unbased.]

As stupid as you think it sounds I totally agree. Blacks should not ever be in positions of power. They should be suppressed back in to slavery. bricks00usa, Christian Forums [2007-Aug-21]

Apes are just creatures twisted by Satan to mock Jesus by giving EVILolition credibility. Further more they are naturally lust crazed for human women. Since they are not natural creatures they should be exterminated forthwith as the tools of evil they are. BJ Tabor, Blogs4Brownback [2007-Aug-01]

To say the Bible was written by men and may contain inaccuracies completely contradicts the word of the Bible. Ia Orana, MSN Miss Manners [2008-Jan-01]

If the Bible is wrong when it tells us it is infallible, then it contradicts itself. If it contradicts itself, then it is unreliable. If it is unreliable, then our faith is totally shattered and Christianity is a lie. You need to seriously reconsider your logic. uscchica09, BibleForums.org [2006-Sep-03]

No one knows what’s happening until the flood comes (according to Matthew). And the flood is here – it refers to the apocalypse. There is a huge amount of supporting evidence on the site. For example, there is evidence for the wh0re of Babylon due to a 666 mile long penis in Mexico. alasdair, Christianity Board [2006-Dec-02]

From years of studying environmentalists I have come to the conclusion that they are both religion based and mentally ill. This makes for a dangerous combination. [...]

The mental illness of environmentalism manifests itself is three forms; Paranoid, Delusional and Criminal insanities. [...]

Since religious environmentalism is a mental disease it must be treated like one. Those afflicted by the malady must be gathered into central locations and be treated by counseling, drug therapy, shock treatments or whatever is necessary to restore their sanity and return them to being productive members of society. The state presently administers such treatments to other mentally ill citizen, even against their will, and therefore there is hope for environmentalists.

Legal methods – Once the sick mind of an environmentalist forces him to cross the line to the realm outside the law they are to be dealt with as any other criminal is. These criminal environmentalists are, in fact, terrorists. They seek to achieve their goals by terrorizing the general population by criminal actions. Like any criminal they have no regard for the rights or lives of their victims. Judges, no matter how liberal, owe it to the general public to protect them from criminal environmentalists by sentencing them as they would any rapist or murderer. They can show no leniency or preference in dealing with them. If their minds can be salvaged through mental treatments they can return to society. If not, then the general public is safer with them incarcerated. The population of a nation is not to be held hostage by the mind of a crazy person.

Mentally ill environmentalists working in the news media are to be treated as any other environmentalist. Counseling, drugs, incarceration, whichever turns them back into normal people.

Environmentalists can be saved from themselves. If we have the courage to act! Dr Samuel C Gipp, Essays and Ideas by Dr Samuel C Gipp, Th.d [2006-Dec-01]

What do the other human persons here think ?

No doubt someone will object, saying something obviously ridiculous like, but atheists are persons.

But clearly this is mistaken because anybody without a well developed belief in God is obviously not a full human person.

What could be more obvious than that ?

How many full human persons do you know without a well developed belief in God. Obviously none, because if they were full human person they would have a well developed belief in God.

Now some people might object to killing atheists for there (and obviously it is there and not thier as they are not whos but whats ) organs but think of all the full human persons that would benifit from the organs and the medical research that could be done on these non-persons.

How could anybody object, they are not human persons and if you think we should not kill them then that is just because of out dated ideas and because they must really just want people to suffer. For shame on you !

So what do people think ?

Should we kill these atheist human non-persons for the benifit of fully human persons ? Jason, TheologyWeb [2007-Mar-07]

These are just some of the ones I thought were funny, bizarre and ironic. If you click over and read those I didn’t include, you’ll see some that aren’t so funny. Some indicate serious mental deficiencies, anti-social attitudes justified by faith. It’s sobering to think that these people might be standing next to you at a bus stop, they may be bagging your groceries or piloting your next flight.

That isn’t quite so funny.

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Theists often contend that belief in gods has always existed and that atheism is a later development. They say that atheism is nothing more than a rejection of theism, a desire to sin and party without fear of divine retribution.

We can’t possibly know what humans believed prior to recorded history. We can logically suppose that they were superstitious, inventing stories to explain the natural phenomena for which they had no better explanation. We can suppose that because we can imagine and empathize. We can imagine ourselves in their position and conclude that’s what we’d do.

We do know that for every god mankind has invented there have been those who didn’t believe in them. They may have lived in a country where that god was unknown or not worshiped. They may have simply not accepted the priest’s or shaman’s stories. For pretty much every unsubstantiated belief there are those who don’t buy it.

The non-belief in gods is a base state of thought. No child has ever been shown to be born with a belief in any divine entity. We all start out from a position of non-belief. Once we are told about gods or a particular god we can move into disbelief. Non-belief is born of ignorance, disbelief is born of knowledge.

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Heidi Klum, who dressed up as Hindu goddess Kali, who symbolises death and destruction, for her Halloween bash, has left the Hindu community in America fuming.

And now upset Hindus have asked Klum to make a public apology for posing as a sacred figure.

“Goddess Kali is highly revered in Hinduism and she is meant to be worshipped in temples and not to be used in clubs for publicity stunts or thrown around loosely for dramatic effects,” Contactmusic quoted Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed as saying.

He added: “Hindus welcome Hollywood and other entertainment industries to immerse themselves in Hinduism, but they should take it seriously and respectfully, and not just use the religion for decoration or to advance their selfish agenda.

“Casual flirting sometimes results in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols and hurting the devotees.”

Other than Zed, various Hindu leaders, including Jawahar L. Khurana of the Hindu Alliance of India, and Bhavna Shinde of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, have condemned Klum for posing as Goddess Kali.

They went to the extent of calling Klum’s act as “denigrating”. (Yahoo)

The Muslims are all heady now. Their religion is finally being noticed again after being relegated to the status of a 3rd or 4th rate religion for last few hundred years.

Yeah, they were something once. Muslim contributions to Mathematics, Astronomy, and Philosophy in the Middle Ages are well documented. Then they started putting more emphasis on religion and turned their backs on their own discoveries. Their religion became as irrelevant as their culture until Islam started being interpreted by clerics with political aspirations as well as the means to control their people’s minds.

But now they’re famous, everybody’s aware of Islam these days. And like many celebrities Islam is getting a little carried away with its new-found fame. It’s getting a little snooty, it’s taking itself a bit too seriously.

It’s not enough that Islam is now acknowledged as a major religion. Islam’s own teachings, as interpreted by modern (only about 1500 years out-of-date) clerics, demand that non-believers are not acceptable.

There’s a lot of similarity between Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. They both lack a sense of humor. Neither can laugh at themselves, they are humorless theologies.

They both operate under the misconception that respect can be demanded of everyone without even trying to earn it. They can conceive of no reason why everyone shouldn’t share their beliefs, so they see nothing wrong with forcing their beliefs on others.

Well, sorry guys, but not everyone buys it. Not Islam, not Christianity, not Scientology, none of you. All your posturing and demanding respect makes no impression on us. Your threats of eternal damnation or worse don’t intimidate us. We are not awed by your displays of wealth, influence and firepower.

Those of us blessed by genetics with a sense of humor take you no more seriously than we take ourselves. We are happy blasphemers. We defend ourselves from you with mockery and exposure.

Quit being such drama queens and join the human race. Get over yourselves. Grow up. You won’t get your way by throwing a tantrum.

(Note: I’ve had a few comments asking if I was confusing Islam with Hinduism. No, but I wasn’t completely clear in the transition from the article quoted and my commentary. The attitude of the Hindus was illustrative of the current attitude of many religious, especially Muslims and fundamental Christians. Everything in my commentary applies equally to Hinduism, though they aren’t as obnoxious and demanding as their theological cousins usually.)

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Lot’s of people have what you and I would probably agree are screwed up moral codes. Humans are imperfect. To touch on the old Hitler “was an atheist” chestnut, he was raised with strict religious (Catholic) morals. Somewhere along the line he took what he believed and twisted it into a perverse belief system. A person who acts “immorally” is by definition not acting out of a belief in any moral code, theistic or atheistic. They’re acting without morals of any kind.

People behave immorally (according to so-called Christian morals). Are they all atheists? Hardly. A fellow atheist and friend, Mojoey, blogs about ministers caught molesting children. He’s been doing this for a while and his list is extensive. Surely these men were raised with good so-called Christian morals. What went wrong? Are these so-called Christian morals not strong enough to overcome our common flawed humanity? When I see so many people commit horrible acts against their fellow man and know that they were raised with so-called Christian morals, I have to ask; what about Christian morals makes them worthy of emulation or respect?

How many average criminals, people acting immorally or unethically, are atheist? I don’t know exactly, but I would expect they are represented among the criminal class to about the same degree they are generally in society. I suggest the majority of those we’d call immoral and unethical criminals are religious believers, raised on some sort of religious moral code.

I further submit that the majority of atheists in America live lives indistinguishable from the average theist’s. If they can melt successfully into society, they must be living ethically/morally enough to escape notoriety.

All our ethics/morals are instilled in us at an early age. We are all taught the rules for membership in our society. We are taught early on how to get along in this Western society.

In reality, there are no Christian or atheist morals; there are social morals that are different in each society. If morality was absolute, different cultures would all behave identically. All morals are relative to the context in which they are applied.

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